


Damaged

by ShuFlyPie



Series: Built to Fall Apart [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Robin: Son of Batman (Comics)
Genre: Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mild Hurt/Comfort, no profreading we die like mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 22:50:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19485619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShuFlyPie/pseuds/ShuFlyPie
Summary: Slade sees Damian’s scars.Set during Deathstroke (2016) #33, when dumb plot point suggested Slade might be Damian's biological father.





	Damaged

Wintergreen had told him the brat was a “severely damaged young boy” but Slade Wilson doubted his old war buddy heard about the full extent of the kid’s damage from Batman’s balding butler. 

The kid. Damian Wayne. Bruce Wayne’s bastard son. 

_Christ_ , if only if it were easier for Slade to get drunk.

It was easy to pretend the kid was just another kid--Joey, maybe--when he had those joke glasses and blond wig on. But, in this mildew scented motel bathroom, it was impossible to pretend he was anyone but Robin. 

Damian had just gotten out of the shower, and the towel covered him from waist to midcalf when it would have barely reached Slade’s midthigh. 

The kid had the beginning of defined stomach muscles, but his entire torso was discoloured--the red bruises drawing in ribs on the mottled flesh. On his shoulder were more purple bruises, bordered with healing green bruises as if his olive skin was painted in Joker’s colours by some unkind force in the universe as some kind of cosmic joke. 

Damian had another bruise on his chin, from when Slade had smacked him around earlier that day, and a scar that started on his lower cheek and ran down to across his carotid artery. Both hidden with makeup, Slade realized.

In fact, Damian had all kinds of scars: pale ones, dark ones, raised ones, dimpled ones, immature ones that were still scabbing over from the night before, mature ones that must have been on him for nearly a decade judging from the way they faded. 

Over Damian’s sternum was a thick white scar, dividing his abdomen like the outline for an autopsy, skewing just a few millimeters to the left to cause maximum damage to the heart. In the mirror, Slade could see the entry wound, just as thick and white, that overlaid a narrow scar that started at the base of Damian’s neck and disappeared under the towel. From when Damian had his spine replaced; from that time Slade took over Damian’s body in an attempt to assassinate Dick Grayson. 

Slade didn’t doubt the patchwork of scars and cuts and bruises covered the parts hidden by the towel. After all, the kid even had burn marks on the soles of his feet. 

When Damian realized what Slade had been staring at, his hand reached up to cover the back of his neck, as if those tiny, broken fingers could protect him from their shared past. 

“Is it still inside you?” Slade asked, bending over the sink to wash his face. 

Damian’s scowl and silence were all the answer he needed.

Without the gel propping up his hair another feet, the dark locks softened Damian’s face, accentuating the baby fat that will one day give way to Talia’s cheekbones and Bruce Wayne’s jawline. 

He might have inherited his mother’s large eyes and his father’s scowl, but Damian’s body was more like Slade’s than it was like Dick Grayson’s or even Bruce Wayne’s. Damian, like Slade, had been baptized by blood as the best in their profession. 

The only difference was that Slade had already joined the army; his tortured didn’t even start until after he had lied and told everyone he was eighteen, an _adult_ . And this Bat Brat was only thirteen. _Christ_. Every muscle in Damian’s body had been honed to perfection by more than a decade of training, and the kid’s barely hit puberty.

Even Joey had been fifteen when he joined the Teen Hooligans. Rose had been sixteen before she went crazy and stabbed out one of her eyes. And Adeline wanted to paint _Slade_ as the worst parent of the century. 

Slade grabbed a towel to dry his face and shut the bathroom door behind him. 

As he leaned back against the shoddy motel pillows, he found himself listening to Damian pull on his Robin uniform, listening for any sound of discomfort or protest. All he heard were the rustling of fabric and the clinkering of painkillers. 

When the kid emerged, he was back in his Robin uniform, his scars concealed. 

“You sleep, father. I’ll keep watch,” Damian said as he perched on the window sill. 

_Wintergreen, you have no idea the extent of the damage done to this kid_. 

#

Slade woke up to the sound of the motel’s cheap coffee maker screaming at the injustice of boiling water in plastic. 

“I have prepared breakfast,” Damian solemnly informed him as he poured out two cups of black coffee and set them next to two protein bars. 

Slade grimaced when he saw the brand. The kid’s dad was rich, but apparently he couldn’t afford something that wasn’t made of pea protein and tasted like ass. The kid ripped one open and took a bite, his expression not changing. He also drank his coffee black, though, judging from the dark bags under his eyes, he needed it. 

Damian didn’t act as much like a kid as he did a small Batman. No fun, no joy. No wonder Dick Grayson wanted to save him so badly. 

“Go get your wig,” Slade instructed Damian, “we’re going to the diner across the block.” 

“That diner failed its sanitation inspection twice this year.” 

But he still got his wig. And Slade counted it as a win. 

It will be a good place to go over their plan of attack. And Slade was pretty sure all kids like pancakes when thirteen. 


End file.
